Thursday, January 12, 2012

Linda Crate- 3 Poems

my time is not now 
 
silly boy you mistook forgiveness
with forgetting, I would be stupid

to loose my hold of those memories
that still cut like shards of glass, the

words you aimed at my head like a 
rifle before pulling the trigger, I’ll

not hold your transgressions against
you, but I’ll never trust you again;

you wounded me deeper than the
ocean, eroded me worst than the

sea eating away at rocks; you burned
my heart into stardust the rest of me

will follow one day, but not by you
I’ll go on my own day and terms.



a proton and a neutron 
 
you trip over the syllables like a laughing girl,
like I always falter when I walk; I over or under
calculate each step, always such a klutz; but my
words flow like honey whereas you trip over your
vernacular and walk straight, perhaps, we could
help one another if we weren’t so proud to admit
that we have problems, maybe we were the two
hinges of a door separated at birth; maybe that’s
how we can complete each other so perfectly
without knowing how it is that opposites attract —
it’s like we’re back in science class and I’m a
proton and you’re a neutron, it’s like these bones
and lips and marrow have nothing to do with the
fabric of whom we truly are; it’s just window
dressing masking the skeletons of life that no 
one wants to see, we shine as brightly as the stars
together, but as individuals we’re lacking, please
never send me back out there in the world alone.



the hold of winter 
 
threadbare branches of wizened
trees hold their arms without leaves
so proudly, as if enamored by their
own strength which lends them
to stand without their children; the
cardinal sits upon them, cutting
across the dreary landscape of winter’s
alms thrust into the aorta of the land;

like the pieces of you that froze over
my heart in icy fingers; you were a
parasite like winter, stealing the marrow
from my bones and leaving me weary —
I dreamed of spring days coming to
thaw away all the damages that ravaged
against my brow; but you chased her 
pastel skirts away for as long as you could;

you wanted me to suffer the crime of
loving you; I never understood why you
were so cruel, why you had to erode away
at my heart piece by piece before throwing
me to the mouth of jagged rocks; you say
I’m not always the martyr, but I’m not always
the one to blame, sometimes the facsimiles
spun pour from your mouth in absinthe not mine.



Linda Crate is a Pennsylvanian native born in Pittsburgh yet raised in the rural town of Conneautville. Her poetry has been published in various journals the latest of which including: Skive, The Scarlet Sound, and Speech Therapy.

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